Taming Conflicts within IT Teams

Two things fuel energy in many IT teams - Coffee and Conflict! Of these Conflict packs a more powerful punch than coffee. But a few simple ways to manage conflict helps you avoid deflect and tame many of these conflicts!

The number one reason for conflicts within IT teams is when job descriptions and responsibilities may be written down clearly on paper but the thousand and one other things that come up during a day for IT teams to deal with, clarity tames much of the conflict.

Having clear, broad groups of responsibility help fill in gaps that written job descriptions may not cover. This is more reinforced by assigning people tasks that are in their "area of responsibility" and doing these in staff meetings where everybody is present. Repeated mentions of Infrastructure, Programming, Database Management and other IT functions in these meetings when assigning tasks makes it clear to everyone who is responsible for what.

Meetings done without agendas and minutes for followup are recipes for creating conflict down the road. When meetings are run crisply, on time and keeping it short will deflect many of the problems that come with finger pointing in the absence of duch documentation.

Being treated fairly is not something you can write down in a manual or enforce in any measurable way. This is something the Top sets an example of, hires people who CAN treat people fairly (believe me, this is more a hiring error that rears its head later on. If you don't hire a person who can be impartial, don;t expect fair treatment a year down the line!). There will always be that one person who feels ALWAYS that they are being treated unfairly but in general, fair treatment gets recognized as such.

Conflicts with other departments and IT are inevitable also. This is where IT's role needs to be clearly defined and made clear to other departments also and needs to be a part of orientation. A new employee may not have any way of knowing that he/she needs to call a help desk with any problem with their desktop system or software and may be bothering IT people in person! IT needs to take a proactive role in this - appropaching HR and volunteering to be part of new employee orientation. Many of the conflicts in companies are due to lack of clarity on who's responsible for what!

Conflicts can be deflected in an IT department with some basic approaches. Doesn't have to be rocket science and it's impossible to capture all of them into written rules and regulations, much less expect anyone to patiently read all of them and remember!